Obama Administration Wants to Use Taxpayer Money to Settle Health Insurer Lawsuits. Here’s How a Republican Would Stop It.

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Republican Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah has mounted a campaign urging House Speaker Paul Ryan to initiate a lawsuit against the Obama administration over the potential use of a fund the Treasury Department oversees to pay federal legal claims to settle with insurance companies suing the government.

Stewart is circulating a letter to his Republican colleagues that would push Ryan to intervene to prevent the Obama administration from using the Judgment Fund, an indefinite appropriation created by Congress, to pay billions to insurers who are suing over Obamacare’s risk corridor program.

So far, at least 10 members have signed on to his letter to Ryan.

“Such an egregious misuse of taxpayer funds is not only a violation of the law but also represents an institutional challenge to the legislative branch, and should be met with the fullest opposition from the House of Representatives,” the letter states. “If such a payment is not met with a challenge from Congress, there is no limit to any administration’s ability to decide which of its priorities it funds.”

AshLee Strong, spokeswoman for Ryan, said they are looking at options.

“By passing the [Sen. Marco] Rubio amendment, Congress has been clear that no taxpayer dollars are to go to failing insurance companies under Obamacare,” she said in an email to The Daily Signal.

Insurance companies filed lawsuits against the Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year over the risk corridor program, which was written into the Affordable Care Act and designed to provide insurers with stability during the first few years of the law’s implementation.

Under the risk corridor program, insurers that had excess profits paid into a fund operated by the federal government. Those that incurred excess losses received money from the fund.

Because many insurers experienced significant losses during the 2014 benefit year, insurance companies received just 12.6 percent of the payments they expected to receive from the risk corridor program and are now arguing they’re entitled to the remaining money.

The Obama administration has signaled it is open to discussing settlements with those companies, and if it decided to do so, it would tap into the Judgment Fund to pay out billions of dollars to insurers.

“They hoped this thing would slide under the radar and no one would notice,” Stewart told The Daily Signal. “The Judgment Fund has been abused in the past, but never anything like this, for heaven’s sake. It was a few $10 million a year that the Judgment Fund was paying out, not something more than $1 billion, which is what this administration is inviting the insurers to do: Sue us, and we’ll settle. We’ll settle before we leave office.”

“It’s crony capitalism at its worst,” he continued.

In his letter, Stewart urges Ryan to “initiate a civil action” on behalf of the lower chamber in federal court. Authority to do so, the letter states, would be granted under a House resolution passed in 2014.

That resolution authorized the cost-sharing reductions lawsuit filed against the Obama administration.

Because the House resolution approved the initiation of or intervention in any civil action “with respect to implementation of any provision” of Obamacare, legal experts told The Daily Signal in March that it gives Congress the authority to intervene in the risk corridor case.

Stewart said he prefers lawmakers find a “legislative fix” to prevent the Obama administration from using the Judgment Fund to settle with insurers in the risk corridor lawsuits when they return from an extended recess in November.

However, he views legal action as a “backstop” and said the White House has already found ways to ignore legislation passed by Congress regarding the risk corridor program.

“We thought we dealt with this legislatively already, and the language is very, very clear on this,” he said. “The administration continues to find creative ways to circumvent obvious legislative language.”

Late last month, the Justice Department filed motions to dismiss lawsuits filed by two insurers—Moda Health Plan and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina—on the grounds that there is no deadline by which risk corridor payments must be paid.

This contradicts statements from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and its top officials, which have said the government would explore the option to settle.

In addition to Stewart’s letter, which was first sent to GOP lawmakers Thursday, Republicans in both chambers have expressed concern about use of the Judgment Fund in additional letters to Sylvia Mathews Burwell, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; Andy Slavitt, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; and Loretta Lynch, U.S. attorney general.

More than 40 House members, Stewart included, sent Burwell a letter late last month warning that any attempt to settle with insurance companies through the Judgment Fund “will be met with the strictest scrutiny” from Congress.

Republican Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming, Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Ben Sasse of Nebraska sent a separate letter to Burwell, Slavitt and Lynch asking for additional information on whether the Obama administration plans to settle with insurers.

Before working at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Slavitt worked for OptumInsight/QSSI, the sister company of UnitedHealthcare and a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.

UnitedHealthcare is the nation’s largest insurance company, and Slavitt received an ethics waiver from the White House in 2014 that allowed him to begin working on matters involving his former employer immediately.

Slavitt’s history with UnitedHealth Group is raising questions for Stewart.

“He shouldn’t be sitting in a position to make this decision,” Stewart said of Slavitt. “That’s an example of why my Republican colleagues and I hope others are going to be interested in this.”

“Once [Republicans are] aware of what CMS is recommending, that the administration is trying to sue and settle and do it very quickly with an enormous amount of money, when the obvious conflict between the person who’s advocating this and his own personal interest in the industry that he worked with, we’re going to have a lot of interest,” he continued.

Slavitt’s predecessor at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Marilyn Tavenner, left the Obama administration to lead America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group that represents insurance companies.

Stewart called the revolving door of administration officials to and from the insurance industry an example of crony capitalism.

“We’re seeing it here,” he said of the risk corridor lawsuit, “but it’s not the first time that we’ve seen it. The Affordable Care Act is rife with examples of this, and they do it at the expense of the American taxpayer.”

Insurance companies filed lawsuits earlier this year after learning they would receive a fraction of the money requested from the risk corridor program.

The shortfall in risk corridor payments was the result of an amendment added to 2015 and 2016 government spending bills prohibiting the administration from using taxpayer dollars to fund the payments requested by insurers through the program.

Because of those restrictions, insurance companies participating in Obamacare’s exchanges received a collective $2.5 billion less than originally anticipated. Many smaller insurers, including several of 23 consumer operated and oriented plans, or co-ops, closed their doors because of the lower-than-expected risk corridor payments.

After three separate insurers filed lawsuits, congressional Republicans began to issue warnings about the Obama administration using the Judgment Fund to settle with insurance companies.

Settling with insurers would provide the White House with a way to give insurers their full risk corridor payments, effectively circumventing Congress. (For more from the author of “Obama Administration Wants to Use Taxpayer Money to Settle Health Insurer Lawsuits. Here’s How a Republican Would Stop It.” please click HERE)

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Cease-Fire in Ukraine Could Be at ‘Tipping Point’ as US, EU Spar With Russia Over Syria

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The shaky cease-fire in eastern Ukraine has reached a “tipping point,” a high-level Ukrainian government official says.

The official’s comments underscore how geopolitical events—from the war in Syria to the rise of nationalist parties across Europe—have tested international resolve to maintain sanctions on Russia.

“There is no alternative” to the current cease-fire, the official said during a closed-door meeting Wednesday in Kyiv with a small group of foreign journalists, including one for The Daily Signal. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to diplomatic concerns.

“The conflict in the Donbas could be resolved very easily,” the official said, referring to Ukraine’s embattled southeastern region on the border with Russia. “It’s up to Russia … but you can’t be so naïve to think that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will relinquish control of the Donbas. He wants to show that Ukraine is a failed state.”

The conflict in Ukraine is moderated in its intensity by a cease-fire named “Minsk II,” struck in February 2015 by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany, as well as representatives from the two breakaway separatist territories in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has been a party to the cease-fire’s inception and implementation, even though the Kremlin insists Russian troops are not involved in combat operations in Ukraine.

Ukrainian diplomats and lawmakers increasingly are worried that European and American allies will prioritize Russian cooperation in Syria over resolving the conflict in Ukraine.

Kyiv also is concerned about the future of U.S. policy toward Ukraine and NATO after the presidential election, as well as the rise of nationalist parties across Europe—often funded by Moscow and having pro-Russian leanings.

“We are concerned that there is no unity inside the EU,” the Ukrainian official said of the European Union, adding that Ukraine’s partners need to show “patience and persistence” to deter Russia.

“The American side is trying to get a deal done with Russia before [President Barack] Obama leaves office,” the Ukrainian official said. “And next year there could be a completely new Europe. It’s a key issue for us to maintain the sanctions policy. Sanctions are bringing results. An aggressor country must feel the price for the brutal violation of international law.”

The prospects for Ukraine aren’t good, based on past moves by the Obama administration beginning with the U.S. policy “reset” with Russia in 2009, one expert says.

“Ukraine will be sold out in the same way Poland and the Czech Republic were sold out to Russia regarding missile defense ahead of the reset, and in the same way Gulf states were sold out ahead of the Iran [nuclear] deal,” Luke Coffey, director of The Heritage Foundation’s foreign policy center, told The Daily Signal.

“We never learn,” Coffey said.

Realism

The French presidency will be up for grabs in an election next year, as will Germany’s chancellorship. In both countries, far-right parties with pro-Russian leanings have gained ground.

Kyiv is worried that inconsistent messages from EU countries have dissuaded the Kremlin from negotiating over Ukraine.

In 2014, German Chancellor Angela Merkel united EU leaders to put sanctions on Russia after it annexed Crimea. The German leader has remained a staunch advocate of maintaining economic pressure on the Kremlin.

In June, however, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier advocated phasing out the EU sanctions.

France also has shown cracks in its Russian policy.

On July 28, a delegation of 11 French lawmakers and senators visited Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in March 2014, to take part in Russian Navy Day celebrations in Sevastopol.

Marcel Van Herpen, director of the Cicero Foundation, a Dutch think tank, said Russia is using the Ukrainian cease-fire as “a diplomatic tool to further its own revisionist goals.”

“If it’s no longer considered useful, Moscow will quit the negotiating table,” Van Herpen told The Daily Signal. “Moscow has all the trump cards in its hands and Kyiv can only try to convince the Western powers of Moscow’s bad faith.”

The EU extended and expanded the sanctions due to Russia’s ongoing efforts to destabilize Ukraine.

U.S., Norway, Switzerland, Japan, Canada, and Australia are among other countries that also put sanctions on Russia after its military actions in Ukraine.

Russia has been a party to the cease-fire’s inception and implementation, even though the Kremlin insists Russian troops are not involved in combat operations in Ukraine.

Ukrainian diplomats and lawmakers increasingly are worried that European and American allies will prioritize Russian cooperation in Syria over resolving the conflict in Ukraine.

Kyiv also is concerned about the future of U.S. policy toward Ukraine and NATO after the presidential election, as well as the rise of nationalist parties across Europe—often funded by Moscow and having pro-Russian leanings.

“We are concerned that there is no unity inside the EU,” the Ukrainian official said of the European Union, adding that Ukraine’s partners need to show “patience and persistence” to deter Russia.

“The American side is trying to get a deal done with Russia before [President Barack] Obama leaves office,” the Ukrainian official said. “And next year there could be a completely new Europe. It’s a key issue for us to maintain the sanctions policy. Sanctions are bringing results. An aggressor country must feel the price for the brutal violation of international law.”

The prospects for Ukraine aren’t good, based on past moves by the Obama administration beginning with the U.S. policy “reset” with Russia in 2009, one expert says.

“Ukraine will be sold out in the same way Poland and the Czech Republic were sold out to Russia regarding missile defense ahead of the reset, and in the same way Gulf states were sold out ahead of the Iran [nuclear] deal,” Luke Coffey, director of The Heritage Foundation’s foreign policy center, told The Daily Signal.

“We never learn,” Coffey said.

Realism

The French presidency will be up for grabs in an election next year, as will Germany’s chancellorship. In both countries, far-right parties with pro-Russian leanings have gained ground.

Kyiv is worried that inconsistent messages from EU countries have dissuaded the Kremlin from negotiating over Ukraine.

In 2014, German Chancellor Angela Merkel united EU leaders to put sanctions on Russia after it annexed Crimea. The German leader has remained a staunch advocate of maintaining economic pressure on the Kremlin.

In June, however, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier advocated phasing out the EU sanctions.

France also has shown cracks in its Russian policy.

On July 28, a delegation of 11 French lawmakers and senators visited Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in March 2014, to take part in Russian Navy Day celebrations in Sevastopol.

Marcel Van Herpen, director of the Cicero Foundation, a Dutch think tank, said Russia is using the Ukrainian cease-fire as “a diplomatic tool to further its own revisionist goals.”

“If it’s no longer considered useful, Moscow will quit the negotiating table,” Van Herpen told The Daily Signal. “Moscow has all the trump cards in its hands and Kyiv can only try to convince the Western powers of Moscow’s bad faith.”

The EU extended and expanded the sanctions due to Russia’s ongoing efforts to destabilize Ukraine.

U.S., Norway, Switzerland, Japan, Canada, and Australia are among other countries that also put sanctions on Russia after its military actions in Ukraine.

Kyiv is concerned about being excluded from some negotiations by EU and U.S. leaders with Russia—such as discussions that occurred on the sidelines of September’s G20 meeting in China—and being forced to give in on some of its red lines.

Sanctions related to Russia’s annexation of Crimea are separate from sanctions related to the ongoing conflict in the Donbas. The EU conceivably could let up pressure on Moscow over Crimea while maintaining sanctions related to the war in the Donbas.

Some experts say, however, that the collapse of U.S.-Russian negotiations over Syria have left U.S. officials with little confidence in, and appetite for, any grand bargains with Moscow.

“Russia’s breaking of the last cease-fire has depleted the last ounce of trust which still existed in the U.S.,” Van Herpen said. “New negotiations between [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov and [U.S. Secretary of State John] Kerry seem to be senseless.”

Kyiv is not under pressure “today or tomorrow” to make unfavorable concessions to Russia to secure peace in the Donbas, the Ukrainian official said. However, international unity to maintain sanctions on Russia appears to be waning.

“We are worried about EU silence about human rights violations in Crimea,” the official said.

“Sanctions related to Russia’s occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea will remain in place until Russia returns the peninsula to Ukraine,” Daniel Baer, U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said Sept. 7.

Baer added: “We join the European Union in recalling that sanctions imposed on Russia for its aggression in eastern Ukraine will also remain in place until Russia fully implements its Minsk commitments.”

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, is the multinational body charged with monitoring the cease-fire in Ukraine.

Eastern Promises

The terms of the Minsk II cease-fire are broken down into two general categories.

First, Kyiv is supposed to implement a series of political reforms, including a constitutional amendment to decentralize federal power. Ukraine also is supposed to grant amnesty for separatist fighters, and bring the breakaway territories back into the political fold through elections.

The cease-fire’s second tranche of rules is designed to reduce the intensity of the conflict.

Some key points include withdrawal of all foreign soldiers from Ukrainian territory, re-establishing Ukrainian control over the border with Russia in the Donbas, and the unimpeded access of OSCE monitors to all of the conflict areas.

Rules also require both sides of the conflict to pull back heavy weapons a prescribed distance from the contact line.

Kyiv acknowledges it still has work to do on political components of the Minsk deal. Yet, Ukrainian officials claim they are making a good faith effort to implement the required changes.

Ukrainian government officials contrasted their efforts to accomplish the required political reforms against Russia’s continued military support for separatist forces.

The Russian Hand

U.S. and Ukrainian officials say Russia incited the outbreak of the conflict in early 2014 with subversive espionage and special operations actions.

Russia’s covert campaign exploited years of propaganda in eastern Ukraine, which deftly took advantage of memories of the Nazi invasion in World War II and conspiratorial anxieties about the CIA, which were part and parcel of Soviet propaganda during the Cold War.

When protesters in Kyiv overthrew former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was pro-Russian, in February 2014, Russian media quickly painted the revolution as a CIA-sponsored coup that put in place a neo-Nazi government.

Russian media also have portrayed pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine as mainly working-class people armed with confiscated Ukrainian military hardware. Yet, the prolific use of heavy artillery, armor, drones, signals jamming, and surface-to-air missiles suggest the overt presence of the Russian military in the conflict.

According to NATO and Ukraine, combined Russian-separatist forces in the Donbas currently possess about 700 tanks—more than Germany’s armed forces.

Numerous independent news reports and investigations have proven Russian troops have been fighting in the Donbas, and that separatist forces are supplied, trained, and commanded by Russia.

“Despite efforts by combined Russian-separatist forces to blind the SMM [OSCE Special Monitoring Mission] and disguise the flow of personnel and weapons from Russia into Ukraine, monitors continue to document clear evidence of Russia’s direct role in sustaining the conflict,” Baer said at a Sept. 8 meeting of the OSCE’s Permanent Council in Vienna.

Cease-Fire Violations

Twenty months after the February 2015 cease-fire went into effect, shelling and small arms attacks remain daily occurrences along the front lines in eastern Ukraine. So do military and civilian casualties on both sides of the conflict.

About 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have died, along with an unknown number of pro-Russian separatists and Russian regulars.

As of Sunday, 174 Ukrainian troops have died in combat in 2016.

On Saturday, the Ukrainian military said combined Russian-separatist forces had violated the cease-fire 38 times during the past 24 hours, including the use of 120 mm and 82 mm mortars, grenade launchers, machine guns, and small arms. Four Ukrainian soldiers were wounded. One Ukrainian soldier died during the weekend after tripping a landmine.

OSCE monitors have tallied more than 12,000 “cease-fire violations” so far this year.

Cease-fire violations typically comprise attacks with weapons banned from the front lines, including large-caliber mortars and artillery, tanks, and rockets. Small arms attacks are also considered to be violations.

The monitors can identify cease-fire violations through direct observation or by hearing the sounds of explosions or small arms fire. Each shot fired is not a distinct violation. Sometimes a single cease-fire violation comprises dozens of separate attacks.

On Aug. 4, for example, the OSCE logged one violation after hearing 100 undetermined explosions about 4 to 6 kilometers (2.5 to about 4 miles) from the Donetsk central railway station.

On Saturday, Ukrainian and separatist forces carried out a symbolic pullback of troops at two places along the front lines.

Speaking in Kyiv several days beforehand, the Ukrainian official downplayed the importance of the plan, which created a 2-kilometer-wide (1.25 miles) “disengagement area” between Ukrainian and combined Russian-separatist forces.

The official called the troop pullback a “pilot project,” and said it represented “0.05 percent” of what is required for a lasting peace.

Critics say a 2-kilometer buffer is useless. Mortars used in the conflict have ranges up to about 7.25 kilometers. And other weapons sometimes used in the conflict, such as Grad, Uragan, and Smerch rockets, have far greater ranges.

The war also has been a humanitarian disaster, displacing about 1.7 million people who are now refugees inside Ukraine, or “internally displaced persons” in U.N. parlance.

With the war’s third winter approaching, the situation for civilians trapped in the conflict zone is critical.

In rural communities in the Donbas, it is not uncommon for people to grow their own food. Consequently, as winter approaches and gardens go barren, and with normal supply chains cut off due to the conflict, food shortages are a major concern.

‘Pilot Project’

Opinions vary widely about Putin’s strategic objectives. Whether he is trying to rebuild the Soviet Union, for example, or is pushing back against NATO’s western expansion.

Some claim Putin considers himself to be a historic figure destined to reunite Kyivan Rus peoples. Others have a more cynical take on the Russian president, claiming his military adventures are simply domestic propaganda fodder to maintain his grip on power.

Whatever Putin’s ultimate aims, his vision has translated into an interconnected web of military action in Ukraine and Syria.

“Russia connects all of these things—Syria, Ukraine, Georgia—in a way we fail to,” Heritage’s Coffey said. “Russia knows it can build up political capital in one place, like Syria, to spend in another, like Ukraine.”

The Ukrainian official said Moscow’s intent is to maintain “controlled escalation” in the Donbas as part of a larger strategy to destabilize Ukraine and bring the country back into Moscow’s orbit.

“By being successful in economics and with anti-corruption [initiatives], we can deter Russia,” the official said. “We need to be successful in internal reforms. We must rely on ourselves.”

The Cicero Foundation’s Van Herpen says Ukraine must exercise patience.

“Walking away from Minsk is no option for Kyiv,” Van Herpen said. “So, the only solution for Kyiv is to wait out the conflict, manage the Western powers, strengthen its defense, and hope that a change will take place inside Russia.” (For more from the author of “Cease-Fire in Ukraine Could Be at ‘Tipping Point’ as US, EU Spar With Russia Over Syria” please click HERE)

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When Zombies, Aliens, and Felons Steal Our Votes

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People may expect zombies to be wandering the streets on Halloween, but they certainly don’t expect them to start casting ballots a week later. Yet in Colorado, dead voters’ ballots are cropping up in the vote counts.

CBS4, a Denver TV station, identified multiple cases of dead men and women in the state voting, with dozens of other deceased individuals still on the rolls. Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams confirmed these instances and both state and county investigations have been launched.

This comes on top of a report back in May by another CBS station in Los Angeles that found a similar problem in Southern California, with some zombie voters repeatedly voting from the grave years after they died.

While Colorado isn’t the only state dealing with an influx of ineligible voters, it’s unfortunately one of the few states trying to do something about it. A recent report by the Public Interest Legal Foundation and Virginia Voters Alliance lists thousands of noncitizens who were registered to vote and cast ballots in elections in Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The report analyzed data from just eight counties within Virginia. In these eight, the legal foundation found over 1,000 aliens who registered to vote illegally, with nearly 200 ballots cast from this group before they were removed from the rolls.

What’s perhaps most shocking about this is that the alien voters were only detected because when they renewed their driver’s licenses, they told the truth the second time when they admitted to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles that they were not citizens. Thus, this report certainly only shows a fraction of the problem, while the true extent of ineligible noncitizen voters in Virginia has yet to be uncovered.

While this number may seem insignificant, recall that the 2013 Virginia attorney general’s race was decided by a margin of 165 votes, not to mention how the integrity of the voting process is compromised and the votes of legitimate voters are stolen when ineligible individuals are allowed to cast ballots.

While these aliens have been removed from the registration rolls, it seems no information about their illegal registration and voting has been turned over to law enforcement for investigation and prosecution.

Worse still, state election officials appointed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, have refused to provide information on their voting histories and have instructed other counties contacted by the Public Interest Legal Foundation not to provide information on aliens removed from the voter rolls. This gives the appearance of a blatant cover-up.

Instead of being outraged at this illegal behavior by noncitizens or outlining what steps would be taken by the state to prosecute them, McAuliffe instead accused the Public Interest Legal Foundation of prematurely casting doubt on election results: “When you can’t talk about issues and you have nothing to say to the American public about what you will do for them, you throw up issues that have no basis in substance at all.”

No substance? McAuliffe ignored the fact that all of these individuals who illegally registered and voted were removed from the voter rolls because election officials had all the “substance” they needed to prove they were ineligible noncitizens. The governor is ignoring instance after instance of possible felony voter fraud.

Unfortunately, this problem is not unique to Virginia. A similar report released by the legal foundation on Philadelphia shows that thousands of ineligible voters, both noncitizens and felons, registered to vote, stayed on the rolls, and cast ballots in the City of Brotherly Love.

Again, these instances were only found through individuals self-reporting their ineligibility or by chance, meaning they only cover a fraction of the problem, and again, Philadelphia election officials have done nothing to identify these ineligible voters.

Despite the fact that incarcerated felons are barred from voting, Philadelphia election officials refuse to remove felons from the voter rolls or even notate their records. They don’t even know who the felons are because they didn’t ask.

As the legal foundation’s report says, “City of Philadelphia election officials behave as if Pennsylvania law prohibiting certain felons from voting doesn’t even exist. This is rank lawlessness.” They also take no proactive steps to detect aliens who are illegally registered or voting.

The fact that there are so many felons and potential felons from Philadelphia in the state Legislature today or formerly might have something to do with Philadelphia’s lawless attitude. This was demonstrated at a hearing on Oct. 3 at the state Capitol where J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, testified before the Pennsylvania House State Government Committee on the findings in the Philadelphia report.

One of the members of the committee is Vanessa Lowery Brown, D-Philadelphia, who is under indictment for taking bribes to vote against voter ID legislation. According to state grand jury testimony, she admitted her guilt and told undercover officers that she preferred her bribes to be delivered by check, not in cash.

Despite this admission to the grand jury and the fact that four other defendants facing similar charges have all pleaded guilty and a fifth pleaded no contest (all state legislators, too), Brown is claiming she was racially targeted by law enforcement. This claim has been vehemently denied by all of the law enforcement officials involved in the prosecution.

According to a source present at the hearing, Brown spent much of the Oct. 3 hearing disputing that prohibiting incarcerated felons from voting should be a concern even though it is the law of Pennsylvania. She complained that talking about the issue would deter felons from voting once they got out of prison. She said encouraging felons to vote when they leave prison should be more important than worrying about ballots being cast for or by them when they are in prison.

This caused state Rep. Jerry Knowles, R-Tamaqua, to explode even though he was sitting next to Brown on the dais: “My constituents don’t give a rip about whether a felon is discouraged from voting, I can tell you that much, they care about their vote not being canceled by an illegal vote. “

Another convicted felon (we are not making this up) who is a member of the House committee was also present at the hearing, although she got up at one point and left the hearing room. State Rep. Leslie Acosta, D-Philadelphia, pleaded guilty in March to a felony count of conspiring to commit money laundering, although that has not stopped her from running for re-election (or potentially voting in November). Only in Philadelphia.

Virginia, Philadelphia, and Colorado all highlight the security problems we have in our voter registration system that allow fraudulent and illegal votes to poison the integrity of the election process. They emphasize the need for officials to investigate, charge, and remove ineligible voters from the rolls, not ignore the problem and refuse to enforce the law against wrongdoers.

No matter how small the number, ineligible and zombie voters have no place in our voting rolls or ballot boxes. Until we take steps to improve the security and integrity of our election process, the problem will only grow. (For more from the author of “When Zombies, Aliens, and Felons Steal Our Votes” please click HERE)

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Hillary Loves Religious Freedom… Only for Muslim Foreign Nationals

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Hillary Clinton called for fact checkers to help her out tonight. At the risk of staying up the entire night debunking every word she spoke on policy, lets address what is perhaps the most scandalous part of the debate from a policy perspective. Hillary managed to flip two of the most foundational principles — religious liberty and sovereignty — upside down and inside out.

Early on in the debate, a Muslim voter, who was allegedly undecided, asked the following question:

There are 3.3 Muslims in the United States and I’m one of them. You’ve mentioned working with Muslim nations, but with islamophobia on the rise, how will you help people like me deal with the consequences of being a threat to the country after the election is over.

After a brief back-and-forth between the candidates on refugee policy — one of the few moments when Trump was fully on message — Hillary made the following laughable, hypocritical, outrageous, and dangerous comment:

But it is important for us as a policy, you know, not to say as Donald has said, we’re going to ban people based on a religion. How do you do that? We are a country founded on religious freedom and liberty.

How do we do what he has advocated without causing great distress within our own country … are we going to have religious tests?

Remember folks, Hillary is the leader of the party that believes religious Christians and Jews (or Muslims or anyone else) must service homosexual or transgender events with their own private property. They must engage in involuntary servitude or have their livelihoods terminated unless they agree to violate their conscience; the “most sacred of property” rights, as Madison put it. They believe unelected judges can force a grocery store to include every type of contraception in their pharmacy section when 30 other pharmacies within driving distance sell the products. And they believe a county clerk who has served her jurisdiction for 27 years — predating the concept of a gay marriage –—should be thrown in jail for requesting that someone else sign the license, which in itself runs country to state law that was never changed statutorily.

No, Mrs. Clinton, our country wasn’t founded upon the notion that foreign nationals have an affirmative right to immigrate to this country. But it was founded upon the self-evident truth of natural law and nature’s God — the very God you rejected with your defense of judicial tyranny tonight — that Americans and those accepted into our society through mutual consent have the right to secure their property, earn a living, and practice their religious liberty. They most certainly have the right to not have their religion debased with their own business and property.

So how about those litmus tests? Hillary seems to have figured out how to implement religious tests when it comes to the religions she doesn’t like. Oddly, she has no problem replacing the real religious freedoms of Americans with a phantom and dangerous right for any particular immigrant or groups of immigrants to come here against the will of the people, even though many of them come from cultures that will not disagree with her chosen religion — the sexual revolution — in an agreeable and cordial fashion.

Under Hillary’s dangerous conception of the First Amendment, a view shared by the majority of the modern legal profession, an American Christian has no right to run a business without violating his religion, yet a Pakistani national can sue for discrimination for not being allowed to immigrate to our shores in the first place. This position is not only dangerous, especially during a time of war; it’s ignorant.

Given that Hillary will not read my book, which debunks her premise on both accounts of religious liberty and sovereignty, she would be wise to read one court case: Turner v. Williams, [194 U.S. 279, 290 (1904)]. In Turner, which was unanimous and is the most accepted area of settled law, the Court stated, “[R]ested on the accepted principle of international law, that every sovereign nation has the power, as inherent in sovereignty and essential to self-preservation, to forbid the entrance of foreigners within its dominions, or to admit them only in such cases and upon such conditions as it may see fit to prescribe.”

This is one “precedent” from the courts liberals don’t like to abide by.

That we have a presidential candidate who is this ignorant of our most foundational values of sovereignty and religious liberty should scare us all. Then again, it’s not like we have a Republican Party beating the drums on behalf of true religious liberty either. (For more from the author of “Hillary Loves Religious Freedom… Only for Muslim Foreign Nationals” please click HERE)

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Fraudulent Hillary Blasts the Very Tax Loopholes She Uses

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Today, Hillary Clinton stood before the nation to outline her vision for the American economy. During her speech, she was resolute in her differences with political nemesis, Donald Trump.

Clinton was correct; the policy positions she shares with Trump are few; their policy differences, many. Clinton would like to increase taxes, regulations, and labor union membership. Trump wants the exact opposite.

Yet, Clinton was most emphatic in highlighting the difference between the two candidates’ tax policies. Of course, Clinton took a page from the ole’, outdated Democratic playbook, claiming her Republican opponent is proposing tax cuts for the rich. And this time, Clinton can point to her opponent, a billionaire himself, who will benefit from his own policies.

As I’ve pointed out in the past, the “tax cuts for millionaires” line is an easy talking point for Democrats, since it plays into the emotions of the middle class that the rich aren’t paying their fair share. Yet, the facts paint a different picture: The rich pay more than 70 percent of all federal taxes; the top one percent of Americans pay 25 percent of all taxes. On the other hand, those at the bottom of the income ladder pay only 0.8 percent (yes, that’s zero point eight) of all taxes.

So, any tax cut at all will almost always have a larger impact on those who pay most in taxes.

Clinton would like to increase taxes on millionaires. Her proposal, as studied by the Tax Policy Center, will increase taxes by $1.1 trillion over the next decade. Among her liberal tax policies, Clinton would like to impose an “exit” tax on corporations seeking more favorable tax rates in other nations and a special “American Dream Tax” — meaning those who make millions will be levied a new special tax.

But perhaps NO ONE hates paying taxes more than the Clintons. In fact, the Clintons go to such lengths to avoid the very taxes they propose for others that some believe they are engaged in tax fraud.

First, Clinton highlighted (vigorously I might add) that Trump wants to eliminate the estate tax. The estate tax, otherwise known as the death tax, is a transfer of wealth to the federal government after a family member dies. Currently, the death tax has a relatively high threshold: Taxes apply to assets over $5 million per individual, or $10 million per couple. So, of course, they mostly apply to upper income families — Trump’s and Clinton’s included.

Conservatives have long believed the death tax is unjust since it re-taxes all those assets that had already been taxed. It’s a long-standing tradition for conservatives to propose its elimination, as Trump has done.

Today, however, Clinton trashed Trump for such a proposal. The true irony, of course, is that Clinton has set up legal tax shelters to avoid ever paying the death tax — the very tax that she thinks rich Americans should pay. Bloomberg News reported in 2014:

Bill and Hillary Clinton have long supported an estate tax to prevent the U.S. from being dominated by inherited wealth. That doesn’t mean they want to pay it.

How righteous of them.

Bloomberg also found that in 2010 the Clintons shifted their mansions into residential trusts. By doing so, any appreciation in the house will not be valued in the tax base. Experts believe this could save the Clintons hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes. In addition to their residential trusts, the Clintons also participate in life insurance trusts (also created in 2010). A life insurance trust allows the Clinton’s to avoid paying any death taxes.

How many of the ordinary Americans Clinton is supposedly “championing” on behalf of can place their homes into tax exempt residence trusts? Yah, me neither. Of course, these tax loopholes are legal, but the Clintons could have avoided such tax schemes in order to fulfill their “patriotic” defense of breaking up wealth held by the country’s top performers.

Yet, this is only the beginning of the Clintons’ hypocrisy.

The Clintons have been known to utilize five different shell companies, all registered to an address in Wilmington, Delaware, for the purposes of avoiding taxes. Actually, the Clintons aren’t even that discreet about it. The one address their shell companies use is also shared by 280,000 other companies for the purpose of avoiding taxes.

Bonnie Kristian writes in The Week:

[T]wo of the five [businesses] are tied to Bill and Hillary Clinton specifically. One, WJC, LLC, is used by the former president to collect consulting fees. The other ZFS Holdings, LLC, was used by the former Secretary of State to process her $5.5 million book advance from Simon & Schuster. Three additional shell companies belong to the Clinton Foundation.

And that brings us to the mother of all tax farces: the tax-exempt Clinton Foundation. In fact, a charity watchdog, the Sunlight Foundation, called the Clinton Foundation a “slush fund.” For starters, the charity work by the Clinton Foundation is suspect. In 2013, the Clinton Foundation raised more than $140 million, yet only spent $9 million on charity. Interestingly enough, the Foundation spent $30 million on payroll and employee benefits, $10 millions of luxury office space; another $10 million for “conferences and conventions,” while the rests sits in coffers presumable awaiting a Clinton retirement.

In numerous instances, the Foundation has been questioned as to whether it’s merely been a scheme to pay off friends. The New York Post reported that Chelsea Clinton’s friend, Eric Braverman, took over the Foundation in 2013 and made a killing — earning $275,000 in just five months.

In addition to paying exorbitant salaries to friends and family, a typical tax avoidance technique by the rich to shelter taxes, the Clintons use the Foundation to subsidize travel expenses, office space, and rental properties that would make a king jealous.

The profits that the Clintons realize through their foundation have been suspicious for some time. Take for example Hillary’s 2012 push for the US—Panama Trade Promotion Agreement. Included in that agreement was the ability to facilitate simplified financial transactions between the United States and Panama. That agreement may have paved the way for Panama to become one of the world’s largest tax shelters, as we now know came to fruition in the great world-wide offshore havens set up by the firm Mossak Fonseca.

As The Nation highlights in one article, “Although Hillary denounced Mossak Fonseca’s dealing on cue after the Panama Papers story broke, a number of individuals and multinationals that have contributed to the foundation used MF to establish offshore accounts.”

Furthermore, in May, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that the Clinton foundation was shelling out millions in untaxed donations that didn’t fit the charity definition, per se, but their friends. In that article, the WSJ revealed that more than $2 million was committed to a for-profit company, Energy Pioneer Solutions, founded by Scott Kleeb, a close friend of the Clintons. But it gets juicier. Brietbart news reports,

Not only did the [Clinton Foundation] potentially violate tax-exempt charitable foundation law by acting for private benefit, but Bill Clinton personally endorsed the company’s request to former Energy Secretary Steven Chu for a federal grant of $812,000.

This anecdote is just the tip of the iceberg. There are countless stories of Hillary selling political favors while she was Secretary of State for donations to her very own Foundation. For example, the less than democratic and perhaps American-terrorist endorsing state of Saudi Arabia, donated between $10 to $25 million to the Clinton Foundation. Fishy? I’d say so.

This is the difference between the two candidates. Whether you like Trump or not, you get the transparent attempt to lower taxes for both the rich — and the poor. Yet, Clinton will sell the American public a policy that makes the tax code fair by increasing taxes on the rich or closing tax loopholes only the wealthy can access. The sad fact is that Clinton is a dishonest human being who herself has been living off tax loopholes and exploiting the tax code perhaps more than anyone. My bet is that Clinton is interested in a tax code that benefits her wealthy buddies far more than you can ever imagine. (For more from the author of “Fraudulent Hillary Blasts the Very Tax Loopholes She Uses” please click HERE)

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2016 Election Is a Referendum on Government Corruption

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There is a litmus test.

If you would like to know how a Hillary Clinton administration would operate, remind yourself of how her email scandal was handled, not just by Hillary and her aides, but by the Obama Department of Justice, the FBI and the Republicans in Congress — one might say they are all unindicted co-conspirators in a cover-up.

It is a scandal punctuated by government lying and stonewalling and a conspicuous absence of moral courage by those in a position to do the right thing.

Author of “Clinton Cash,” Peter Schweizer, said that this secrecy and financial scandal is unprecedented in terms of scale.

The efforts taken by the Clintons to avoid transparency by setting up a private server and the quantity of money flowing to them dwarfs any previous government scandal. During Hillary’s public service, about $250 million went to the Clintons directly and about $2 billion to the Clinton Foundation, an entity seemingly designed to intentionally evade the laws preventing foreign interests from influencing American politics and policy decisions.

If allowed to stand without accountability, the scandal will itself become a precedent for other greedy politicians to follow, essentially putting America up for sale to the highest international bidder.

According to reports, Hillary Clinton established her private email server on Jan. 13, 2009, eight days prior to her confirmation by the Senate as secretary of State. She later identified March 18, 2009, as the date she began using the private server.

Her use of a private nonsecure server for government business, including the exchange of classified material, remained known only to high officials in the Obama administration until after the Islamic terrorist attack on the U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.

As a consequence of that attack, the nonpartisan government accountability organization Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of State for Benghazi-related emails and other information on Nov. 7, 2012.

Sometime during the week ending on March 15, 2013, Romanian hacker Marcel Lehel Lazar, aka “Guccifer,” accessed the email account of Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton confidant, indicating that Hillary had received sensitive, confidential information on what was later revealed to be the private server she improperly used for government business.

It was not the vigilance of government that uncovered Hillary’s private email server, but the intrusions of a computer hacker and the pressure brought to bear on the Obama administration’s Department of Justice and the FBI through ligation by Judicial Watch.

By March 2015, even the Hillary-friendly New York Times finally admitted that she did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure as secretary of State and she exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business, a potential violation of the Federal Records Act.

And what about Congress?

As Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, has noted, Hillary testified in a congressional hearing that she turned over all her emails, a statement which we now know is false. In addition, emails were destroyed after Congress had subpoenaed them. Hillary could have been found in contempt of Congress or impeached, even now, because a federal official need not be in office to be impeached. Yet, rather than act, Congress chose to refer the matter of perjury to the Obama Department of Justice for criminal investigation knowing full well that nothing would be done.

The saddest casualty of the Hillary Clinton email scandal is the, perhaps, irreparable institutional damage done to the FBI by its director, James Comey. It is now clear that he never intended to conduct a proper investigation and, for purely political reasons, he was never going to recommend prosecution. In essence, Comey gave FBI blessing to a double standard of justice, one for powerful people like the Clintons and one for the rest of us.

Also, we have recently learned that the FBI is now in the business of destroying evidence.

Think about that.

The FBI destroyed evidence in a criminal investigation forever preventing the use of that evidence in any pending or future case.

As part of a “side agreement” brokered by the Department of Justice, Comey agreed to destroy the laptops of Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, after the two women were granted immunity.

Earlier, referring to Mills, who was Hillary’s chief of staff at the State Department, Comey stated in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that “we have no evidence to establish that she committed a crime,” in relation to Hillary’s use of a personal email server.

If Comey did not believe Mills committed a crime, then why would she need immunity and why would the evidence need to be destroyed?

The exoneration of Hillary Clinton was an act of government malfeasance, a conscious choice favoring political expediency over the principle of “equal justice under law” in order to preserve a corrupt status quo. (For more from the author of “2016 Election Is a Referendum on Government Corruption” please click HERE)

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Miller: Murkowski Hiding From Alaska; Ducking Job Interview

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Joe Miller responded today to the news that incumbent Lisa Murkowski is refusing to debate on Alaska’s most-watched television station.

“Lisa Murkowski is scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with excuses for not showing up for her job review,” Miller said. “She’s hiding from Alaska and making excuses. It simply makes no sense to say you want to debate before a broad swath of your constituency while avoiding the largest state-wide television audience.”

Murkowski has agreed only to “debates” sponsored and moderated by her supporters and donors, or, in the case of public television, a venue dependent upon her for tax-payer subsidies.

There is no doubt to an impartial observer that the senator is running from public dialogue, and the issues most pressing to a majority of Alaskans.

Miller concluded, “This is typical behavior for a member of the Incumbents Club. Always up for a contest, as long as it’s rigged. Special favors for special interests. She’s determined to get this election into the special interest weeds so she doesn’t have to answer for what she’s actually been doing in Washington DC. Alaskans deserve better.”

Joe Miller is a limited government Constitutionalist who believes government exists to protect our liberties, not to take them away. He supports free people, free markets, federalism, the Constitutional right to life, the 2nd Amendment, religious liberty, American sovereignty, and a strong national defense.

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US Agencies Point Finger at Top Russian Officials for Political Cyberattacks

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Cyber attacks against the Democratic National Committee were undertaken by Russian hackers working for top officials in the Russian government, American intelligence agencies said Friday.

“The U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations,” said the statement from the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

“We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,” the statement said.

The statement was vague about the reason for Russia’s cyber attacks.

“These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process,” the statement said. “Such activity is not new to Moscow — the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there.”

The joint statement said that despite success in embarrassing the DNC, hackers would be unable to compromise America’s election system.

The statement did note that several states have detected attempts to hack into their election systems, and that servers operated by a Russian company were connected to the attempts.

“However, we are not now in a position to attribute this activity to the Russian Government,” the statement said.

The statement also sought to assure voters of the integrity of the election system.

“This assessment is based on the decentralized nature of our election system in this country and the number of protections state and local election officials have in place. States ensure that voting machines are not connected to the Internet, and there are numerous checks and balances as well as extensive oversight at multiple levels built into our election process,” the statement said.

Putin has denied any connection to the DNC hack, which caused a political embarrassment by revealing the extent to which the DNC worked to support Hillary Clinton’s campaign at the expense of rival Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“Listen, does it even matter who hacked this data?’’ Putin said in early September. “The important thing is the content that was given to the public.’’

“There’s no need to distract the public’s attention from the essence of the problem by raising some minor issues connected with the search for who did it,” Putin said. “But I want to tell you again, I don’t know anything about it, and on a state level Russia has never done this.” (For more from the author of “US Agencies Point Finger at Top Russian Officials for Political Cyberattacks” please click HERE)

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New WikiLeaks Document Dump Targets Clinton Foundation, Hillary’s Campaign Chairman

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WikiLeaks published more than 2,000 documents Friday that it said are emails from Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton‘s campaign chairman, John Podesta.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the emails focus on Podesta’s “communications relating to nuclear energy, and media handling over donations to the Clinton Foundation from mining and nuclear interests.”

One of the major topics of the emails is the State Department’s support for the Russian takeover of the U.S. firm Uranium One in 2010.

The book Clinton Cash alleged that Uranium One shipped millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation. Further, The New York Times reported that $2.35 million was donated to the Clinton Foundation from Uranium One.

“Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors,” The Times reported.

The Times also noted that not long after Russia moved to acquire the majority of Uranium One, former President Bill Clinton received $500,000 for a speech in Moscow.

Jose Fernandez, assistant secretary of state for economic, energy and business affairs, has said Clinton played no role in the deal.

However, an email released by WikiLeaks shows a link between Fernandez and the Clinton campaign.

“John, It was good to talk to you this afternoon, and I appreciate your taking the time to call. As I mentioned, I would like to do all I can to support Secretary Clinton, and would welcome your advice and help in steering me to the right persons in the campaign,” the email reads.

The email dump also includes an email with snippets from remarks Clinton made at various speeches.

In speaking to a Goldman Sachs event, she noted that in terms of middle America, “I’m kind of far removed because the life I’ve lived and the economic, you know, fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy, but I haven’t forgotten [my past].”

A speech to General Electric touched on politics and money.

“I really admire the people who subject themselves to it. Even when I, you know, think they should not be elected president, I still think, well, you know, good for you I guess, you’re out there promoting democracy and those crazy ideas of yours,” Clinton said.

” … in my campaign — I lose track, but I think I raised $250 million or some such enormous amount, and in the last campaign President Obama raised $1.1 billion, and that was before the super PACs and all of this other money just rushing in … So we’re kind of in the wild west, and, you know, it would be very difficult to run for president without raising a huge amount of money and without having other people supporting you because your opponent will have their supporters,” she said. (For more from the author of “New WikiLeaks Document Dump Targets Clinton Foundation, Hillary’s Campaign Chairman” please click HERE)

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EPA Issues 57-State Climate Warning!

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Strike that. It’s a 50-State warning. That 57 came from elsewhere in the Obama administration.

Well, 50 is less than 57, so the warning is not as dire as you might have thought. Yet it’s still serious. Everybody knows that our beneficent government knows best and that all its cautions should be heeded. This is why you should listen to its bureaucratic experts, who are saying “climate change” will have “impacts.”

Impacts!

“Very real impacts,” says the EPA. And what is real is not a fantasy. So get ready to rumble, weather wise. But before thinking about that, we have to understand what “climate change” is.

Here is a scientific fact. In 1936, a typical year, the climate of the earth was perfect. Every afternoon everywhere was sunny and a clement 78 degrees on Mister Fahrenheit’s scale, even in winter. The rain fell in amounts sufficient to water every crop, fill every stream, and extinguish every forest fire — and then it stopped. Floods didn’t happen. There was just enough wind to loft every kite, and no more.

Of course, it’s true that an anomalous heatwave killed over 12,000 Americans in 1936. But still, since there was quite a lot less carbon dioxide in the air then than now, the climate was necessarily better.

The climate was also better in 1886, long before people were burning gasoline on their commutes to work. It was better because there was less atmospheric carbon dioxide, even less than in 1936. And it was better even though the USA was hit by seven hurricanes, the most since records began to be kept (which wasn’t that long ago).

The climate continued to be better than it is now, right up through the 1960s and 1970s when the consensus was that global cooling was going to kill many people. Good thing it never happened (the government had not yet reached its current state of perfection).

Then the climate changed sometime in the mid 1980s into what it is now, with death, doom, destruction on every side. Consult the media for the latest horror. Why did this happen? As hinted at above, a miniscule increase in the atmospheric trace gas carbon dioxide caused the climate to change.

Scientifically speaking, all climate change is bad. Nothing good can ever come of the climate changing. The climate in the past was always better than it is now. The government and environmentalists are in agreement that any change whatsoever to the climate must necessarily be towards greater evil. This is why we must “fight” climate change.

So it’s 2016 and the climate has changed, and will continue to change unless the government can control all aspects of the economy. Sure, you might not think it’s so bad where you live, and that the weather hasn’t been anything unusual. But if you concentrate only on the good news, you’ll miss the important scientific fact that things could be worse. And they will be if the climate continues to change.

And that’s where the EPA comes in, to tell of the “implications of climate change.” The outlook is bleak.

For instance, the climate has changed since 1980, and all climate change is bad. Corn production in 1980 was about 7.5 billion bushels, changing to around 14 billion bushels in 2015 amidst the changing climate. Statisticians call this kind of signal a “correlation.” The EPA warns that climate change in corn-growing Michigan could exacerbate the risk of increased production. Farmers might run out of bushels if the correlation persists, a disaster caused by climate change.

The EPA warns of climate change in Iowa. They say “Hot days can be unhealthy — even dangerous.” Cold days can be unhealthy and dangerous, too. Climate change puts Iowans in danger of both, whereas before climate change such calamities were not possible; or at least they were not caused by climate change. A significant problem, as in Michigan, are “bumper crops” of corn, soybeans, and other foodstuffs. This is causing prices for food to drop. Climate change is thus bad news for those wanting higher prices.

It isn’t only agriculture. Take Texas, where the state GDP was $815 billion in 1997, a time of rapid climate change, according to the EPA. By 2015, amidst a still-changing climate, the GDP had changed to $1,475 billion. The EPA warns “Texas’s climate is changing.” If the observed correlation between GDP and climate change holds, we could see even more changes like these to the GDP.

We could do each state, but you have the picture now. Ravage after ravage. This is why it is a good thing the EPA warned of the dire consequences of climate change a month before the election. Voters will have the chance to choose between Hillary, who has vowed to cease climate change, and Trump, who has said climate change is not especially worrisome. (For more from the author of “EPA Issues 57-State Climate Warning!” please click HERE)

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